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Migration, Identity, and Colonial Fantasies in a Fifth-Century Story Collection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2021

Xiaofei Tian Open the ORCID record for Xiaofei Tian [Opens in a new window]
Xiaofei Tian*
Affiliation:
Xiaofei Tian (stian@g.harvard.edu) is Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University.
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Extract

At the turn of the fifth century, a story about a man contesting real estate with a ghost circulated in several different versions in South China. In one of the versions, a young man discovered three lacquer coffins when digging a tomb for his deceased father and had the coffins reburied elsewhere. That night, he dreamed of Lu Su 魯肅 (172–217), the powerful minister in the southern Kingdom of Wu, who angrily announced that he would exact revenge. He also dreamed of his late father, who told him that Lu Su was fighting with him over the gravesite. Later, the young man found copious blood on his father's seating mat.

Keywords

anomaly account (zhiguai)ethnicitygenderidentitylocal cultMan peoplesmigrationsettler colonialismsexualitysocial class
Type
Forum—Migration in Early Medieval China
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 80 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 113 - 127
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Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2021

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References

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18 That the prince's staff had contributed to the compilation of YML is a speculation entertained by some scholars. See Liu Sai 劉賽, “Jingzhou ji yu Youming lu chengshu guanxi zhi kaocha” 盛弘之荊州記與幽明錄成書關係之考察 [Sheng Hongzhi's Record of Jingzhou and its relationship to the composition of You ming lu], Zhonguo dianji yu wenhua 2 (2008): 18. See also Zhang, Hidden and Visible Realms, xlvi.

19 Xiao, Nan Qi shu, 1007.

20 Shen, Song shu, 2396.

21 Shen, Song shu, 1996–98. See also Chen Yuping 陳玉屏, Wei Jin nanbeichao binghu zhidu yanjiu 魏晉南北朝兵戶制度研究 [A study of the institution of military household in Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern dynasties] (Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe, 1988), 148–49.

22 Shen, Song shu, 1998.

23 Shen, Song shu, 2396.

24 Fan Ye, Hou Han shu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1965), 2829.

25 Shen, Song shu, 1998.

26 Liu 1999, 744. All translations from You ming lu in this article are my own.

27 Shen, Song shu, 2266; Fan, Hou Han shu, 2860.

28 Liu 1988, 18.

29 Liu 1999, 692.

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31 Shen, Song shu, 2396.

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33 Fang Xuanling 房玄齡 et al., Jin shu 晉書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), 1782.

34 Liu 1999, 697–98.

35 See Liu Shufen 劉淑芬, “Jiankang and the Commercial Empire of the Southern Dynasties: Changes and Continuities in Medieval Chinese Economic History,” in Culture and Power in the Reconstitution of the Chinese Realm, 200–600, ed. Scott Pearce, Audrey Shapiro, and Patricia Ebrey (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001), 35, 49–51.

36 Liu 1999, 704.

37 Kang 康 was a Han Chinese surname often adopted by the Sogdian people from Kangju, a Sogdian kingdom in Central Asia. The term used in the story to refer to the man is Hu 胡.

38 Liu 1999, 718.

39 Wei Shou 魏收, Wei shu 魏書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuj, 1974), 2281; Fang et al., Jin shu, 2792.

40 Xie Mingxun 謝明勳, “Liuchao zhiguaixiaoshuo ‘hua Hu’ gushi yanjiu” 六朝志怪小說“化胡”故事研究 [A study of the ‘transformation into Hu’ stories in the Six Dynasties zhiguai], Donghua hanxue 1 (2003): 45–69.

41 Li Yanshou 李延壽, Nan shi 南史 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), 1462.

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43 Liu 1999, 708–9.

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45 Xiao Tong 蕭統, Wen xuan 文選 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1994), 1816.

46 Mather, “Intermarriage as a Gauge of Family Status,” 211–28; Tian, Beacon Fire, 37–38, 51–52.

47 Zhu Zhiwu 朱智武, “Nanjing Sijiashan chutu Xieshi muzhi yanjiu: liuchao liuyu guizu de wange” 南京司家山出土謝氏墓志研究: 六朝流寓貴族的輓歌 [A study of the tomb inscriptions of the Xie family excavated at Sijiashan of Nanjing: A dirge for the Six Dynasties displaced aristocrats], in Huiwang rumeng de liuchao: liuchao wenshi lunji, ed. Li Hongtian (Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2009), 388.

48 Liu, Shishuo xinyu jianshu, 24.

49 Liu 1999, 741.

50 Shen, Song shu, 1236.

51 Cook, Constance A. and Major, John S., Defining Chu: Image and Reality in Ancient China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1999), 3–4Google Scholar, 136; Ban Gu 班固, Han shu 漢書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1970), 1666, 2760.

52 Liang Mancang 梁滿倉, “Lun Jiangshen zai liuchao diwei de gonggu yu tigao” 論蔣神在六朝地位的鞏固與提高 [The consolidation and elevation of the status of the god Jiang Ziwen], Shijie zongjiao yanjiu 3 (1991): 58–68.

53 Yao Xiaodong 姚瀟鶇, “Jiang Ziwen Xinyang yu liuchao zhengzhi” 蔣子文信仰與六朝政治 [Jiang Ziwen worship and Six Dynasties politics], Xueshu yanjiu 11 (2009): 111–16.

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55 Liu 1999, 705.

56 Liu 1999, 717.

57 Fang et al., Jin shu, 242.

58 Liu, Shishuo xinyu jianshu, 647.

59 Liu 1999, 714.

60 Liu 1999, 730–31.

61 Liu 1999, 711.

62 See, e.g., Stoler, Ann Laura, “Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Gender, Race and Morality in Colonial Asia,” in Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era, ed. di Leonardo, Micaela (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 51–101Google Scholar.

63 See, e.g., Fang et al., Jin shu, 1220.

64 Liu 1999, 706.

65 Liu 1999, 725.

66 Wei Zheng 魏徵 et al., Sui shu 隋書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1973), 1055.

67 Liu, Shishuo xinyu jianshu, 53.

68 Liu, Shishuo xinyu jianshu, 12.

69 Liu 1999, 73.

70 Xiao, Nan Qi shu, 890.

71 Liu 1999, 703, 719.